Slideshow Administration

Head of School Search

September 26, 2017

Dear Members of the Falmouth Academy Community:

We are excited to announce the selection of Matthew Green as the next Head of School, starting in the 2018-19 school year.

The Search Committee, comprised of trustees and faculty members, has worked diligently over the last few months reviewing, assessing and interviewing a large number of highly qualified candidates to present five impressive finalist candidates to the Falmouth Academy community. The process was thorough, extensive and designed to ensure that all constituencies were well represented and their voices heard. The candidates met with faculty and staff, students, parents, past parents, alumni, trustees, close friends of the school, Advisory Committee and Search Committee. All constituencies provided their valuable input to the Search Committee. The Committee, informed by this important feedback from the community, as well as its own comprehensive assessments and evaluations, deliberated carefully and thoughtfully to select the leader best suited to build on the School's strengths and opportunities, and meet its challenges. The Search Committee's recommendation to select Matt Green as the next head of school was enthusiastically and unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees.

Matt Green is a seasoned educator and administrator. He is serving his ninth year as Head of the Upper School at The Haverford School in Haverford, Pennsylvania. After spending his childhood on various independent school campuses, he went on to earn his B.A. in English from Tufts University and his Masters from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Prior to Haverford, Matt spent ten years as a middle school teacher and administrator at Fessenden School in Newton, MA and eight years at Pomfret School, where, in addition to his duties as teacher, coach, and dorm parent, Matt was the Academic Dean. Matt also serves as a university-sponsored mentor and sometime-presenter for the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, as a member of the planning committee for the ADVIS-UPenn Summer Leadership Institute and recently as a member of the Board of Trustees at Rectory School, where his father once served as headmaster.

Matt's current head of school describes Matt as an individual "of great character, very thoughtful, unassuming and hardworking." The Director of the School Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania where Matt serves as a mentor says Matt is a "thoughtful, conscientious, knowledgeable educator who is an individual of great integrity and trust. He is an excellent listener who has deep respect for faculty, students and parents."

Our community was struck by Matt's warmth, humility and intellect, his calm and thoughtful demeanor, and the wealth of independent school experience he brings.

Matt is thrilled to be joining the Falmouth Academy community. He says he was drawn to "the clarity and simplicity of Falmouth Academy's mission, its belief in the power of close teacher-student relationships, its noble goal of graduating students who care for their environment and community, and its long-standing commitment to the written and spoken word." Matt adds that "excellence abounds in so many areas, but what truly impressed me was the higher bar the faculty seemed to set for themselves; they measure success not only by the destinations their students reach, but also by the distance each has traveled."

Matt and his wife Jennifer Rossiter, a private piano instructor, are parents to three children, Luke, a college sophomore at Wesleyan University, Eliza, a high school senior, and Jessica, a seventh grader. We will be hosting a reception for the Falmouth Academy community to welcome Matt and Jennifer in the coming weeks. We will share details about the gathering soon and hope that you will be able to join us.

Finally and most importantly, we have a number of critical acknowledgements to make. We especially want to thank our fellow members of the Search Committee: Eleanor Clark, Beth Colt, John Heyl, Joan Holden, Mike Jones, Andy Kingman, Ed Lott, Colin O'Brien, and Brett Sanidas for the countless hours, talent and energy they devoted to the search process to ensure its successful outcome. In addition, a special thank you to the Advisory Committee for its important role in representing the community's constituencies and for all the hard work and time that it devoted to this important role. We are grateful to Co-Chairs, Tucker Clark and Richard Sperduto and to Alison Ament, Andy Bowen P'19, Barbara Campbell, Michael Deasy, Petra Ehrenbrink, Molly Glasgow P'21, Karen Heard P'19,'20,'21, Ben Gregg '90, Doug Jones, Sarah (Lafaver) McCarron '96, Lalise Melillo, Jill Reves, Elizabeth Richardson P'22, '23, George Scharr, Ruth Slocum, and Henry Stevens.

In addition, thank you to Carla Surette, Executive Assistant to the Head of School, who, during the busiest time of the school year, juggled these extra search duties with her usual positive energy and wonderful smile.

We are extremely grateful to the community for your support and your thoughtful and passionate engagement in this process - affirming our close community's deep commitment to, and love for this "gem" of a school.

With Falmouth Academy poised to enter its fifth decade, we look forward to Matt Green's thoughtful leadership as we partner with him to honor Falmouth Academy's core values of kindness and collaboration, build on its strong foundation of academic excellence and create a compelling strategic vision that will ensure Falmouth Academy will continue to thrive in the decades to come.